


The American Servant in Downton

by 1unknowntheatrekid



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Service
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26401489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1unknowntheatrekid/pseuds/1unknowntheatrekid
Summary: When a servant comes across Lady Edith Crawley crying in the library, he does what any good person would do. He tries to comfort her and resolve her feelings of sadness. In the process however, he manages to do more than just help her. What will he do when she starts feeling more than just friendship  and him likewise (sorry about the summary, summaries are difficult).
Relationships: Edith Crawley/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ahead of time, I am sorry for any inconsistencies with canon (my only excuse is that school makes it hard to write fan fiction).  
> Need to Know:  
> My OC is 16, Edith is 20 (no real clue what her age was in season 1, so I guessed)  
> Opens in season 1  
> That's it really

When I was young, my father gave me a piece of advice that I have been turning over for the past months. He told me that life was very strange, God had a weird sense of humor, and that there was something wrong with everyone's mental sanity. I wholeheartedly agreed with him, especially when it came to waking up in the morning for work. Such words provided no solace in my line of work, and they made me regret some of my life decisions.

Ever since arriving at Downton Abbey, I wondered why I, an American, would resign myself to servitude when I could have gotten a job anywhere else with better work hours. I also wondered why the Earl of this place would accept me. I mean, Christ, I barely even knew what spoon to use when I ate my soup, let alone how to address him. Of course I then promptly remembered that my dad had been good friends with the Earl during the War in Africa. Who needed good qualifications when you could rely on old friendships.

Dragging myself out of bed, I strolled over to my bathroom and began the first of my morning routines, while my roommate, William, continued to slumber. It would be about an hour before Mr. Carson arrived to wake up all us servants. 

When I had gotten the job, I thought it wouldn't be half as a bad as I thought it would be. I thought I'd go through the song and dance routine of bowing to the family, serving dinner, polishing that God-awful silverware, and helping about the house. Much to my early satisfaction and recent dismay, I was correct, but doing the actual job was extraordinarily boring and uninteresting. Over time, my days slumped into a monotonous blur of self imposed imprisonment and dullness. The fact that one of the servants was out to make my life living hell, a certain O'Brian, didn't make things easier. There were so many things I wanted to say but didn't. Most of that was due to William being literally by my side almost all day. He was a good kid, only two years older than me. 

Once finished with preparing for the day, I got dressed and spent a little bit of time dealing with my appearance. I lightly ran a hand through my dark brown hair, sweeping my bangs over to the side so the tips of my hair would fall on the edge of my forehead. I topped off the maintenance of my look by shaving away the usual morning stubble. Thank God I lacked teenage acne; my light skin would not be able to handle the spots of red.

"Pete, what're you doing up?" William mumbled, raising a hand in my general direction.

"Early bird get's the worm, mate," I said, my American accent still present. There was no way that was disappearing.

"What time is it?"

"Good question." I replied, buttoning up my vest. "Maybe five-ish."

Saying nothing else, I departed from my room and made my way into the servant's hall. As per usual, I was the first person to arrive in the morning, and I noticed it was still dark outside. I guess I was wrong in my prediction of time. Hoping to counter boredom, I opened up the pack of cards I kept stashed in my jacket's pocket and began to engage myself in a game of solitaire. Time passed rather slowly as I forced myself to focus on the cards and not my boredom. 

While I busied myself with my "productive" activity, Mr. Carson finally arrived, cast a bemused glance at me, mumbled, and promptly went to wake everyone up. Even from here, I could practically hear the other servants' groans as they were roused from sleep. Nobody liked waking up early. 

The first person, other than Carson or Mrs. Hughes, to arrive was Anna, sporting her normal morning grin. I don't know how, but she always seemed to have a positive attitude during the day that made most people like her. 

"Morning Peter." she said, stopping behind me and looking over my shoulder at my current game. "You winning?"

"No clue, but hey, I guess I'll find out sooner or later."

"Hopefully sooner," she stated before walking off to perform her household duties.

The rest of the staff joined me in the servant's hall shortly after Anna left. Most people said their good mornings other than Thomas or O'Brian. They only glowered darkly at me. They still were pissed about the whole me being first footmen instead of Thomas. A sense of dread settled in my stomach. Round two of how to make my life hell was about to begin. To make things worse, I couldn't retaliate because that made things even worse, especially since Barrow wasn't apposed to swiping some of the Earl's trinkets and depositing them in my room. By now I would have told Carson, but O'Brian assured me that if I did, I was goner. Being me, I said that I would dance on her grave if she tried anything. Thomas's stealing stopped shortly afterwards.

The biggest pain in this job, for me at least, was having to serve the family. It was tedious at best and made my spine feel like a lamp post when I was finished. Also, I was thoroughly bothered by the fact that the family rarely noticed or thanked us. I was well aware that their lives could not function without us, and I was pretty sure they did too. Still they hardly acknowledged our existence. 

Carrying the trays of freshly made food, I hiked up the stairs with Thomas and Carson, neatly setting out the morning spread and taking my position of pseudo sentry near the door. If I was lucky, the Earl and his daughters would finish their breakfast early, and I could go back to slouching and easing the tension off my back.

Nothing of any interest happened. Just the usual chatter--Lady Mary being engaged to that Patrick fellow, politics, and possible suitors for Lady Edith. Would my sentence in purgatory end? I liked to think of myself as a somewhat working class hero, and all the high born nonsense the family discussed was annoying. Of course, I was smart enough not to ever make my opinions known to anyone. Those opinions were just one of the many things I kept bottled up in mind. 

It wasn't until the Earl read the paper did anything interesting happen. His face dropped before he announced that the Titanic had sunk. 

Silence reigned supreme as his words sank in. 

To make things worse, Patrick Crawley, fiancé of Lady Mary, had been aboard that ship. 

* * *

I always thought that the British were strange people. Not all of them of course, just a good portion of them. The Crawleys definitely fell under that portion. After hearing about the death of her was to be husband, Lady Mary did no crying and barely mourned his death. It was Lady Edith who was the mess afterwords, which to me was rather strange. She wasn't the engaged one, and why was it affecting her so much. She literally locked herself in her room for almost an entire day due to Patrick's death. Maybe there had been some...

"Peter!"

I was jolted from my thoughts by a mildly enraged Mrs. Patmore. 

"Do you plan on sending these up, or are you just going to stand there?"

"Sorry," I mumbled, grabbing the Crawleys dinner for tonight.

"Americans. Always have their heads in the clouds." she said loud enough for a deaf man to hear.

Despite having been working at Downton for months now, at least half of the staff still viewed me differently because of my nationality. Most of the time that didn't bother, but more and more, it was starting to get on my nerves. I get it, you never got over the American Revolution, but come on! That was over two hundred years ago! And I'm not even fully American. My dad was born in London and my mother was from New York. What the hell?

With my usual indifference, I carried the meal up and into the dining room, only to be greeted with an all out war of words between the two eldest Crawley daughters.

Lady Mary was being her usual cruel, snide self, while Lady Edith tried to keep up with her sister. I had no clue what the argument was about, but I tried my best to just ignore it. Their problems weren't mine, I told myself. Eventually, the feud ended with her Ladyship, the Earl's wife, quieting down both daughters. Thank God in heaven.

Lucky for me, I didn't have to follow the family when they passed into the parlor. William had the distinct honor of replacing me as I got to go around and stop the fires in the various rooms on the first floor. 

An hour had passed, and I had almost finished my rounds when I found Lady Edith crying in the Library. She was sulking in a chair, hurriedly wiping tears from her eyes when I entered. The first thought that crossed my mind was why was she crying in the library, seeing as she had a wonderfully empty bedroom to mope in? The second was what was I supposed to do. Was I supposed to wait till she left, or try to calm her down. 

"I'm s-suh-sorry for you to find me this way," she said, remaining in her seat. "You must think me a terrible nuisance."

"Not at all milady. We all cry sometimes," I responded trying to sound relatively assuring. 

"Me more than most."

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just walked up to her and offered my hankerchief.

"Th-thank you," she said, trying to wipe away her tears and make up. "What's your n-name?"

"Gatsby, Peter Gatsby, milady."

When I had first started, Mr. Carson had told me to just leave the ladies alone and carry about my business quietly. Don't get involved with any of them no matter what, he had said. In this moment, seeing Lady Edith trying to regain her composure, I threw caution and Carson's order to the wind. 

"If you don't mind me asking, why are you crying?"

She looked at me incredulously for a moment. Imagine having a servant talk to a lady in a more or less casual manner.

"You don't want to know," she stated coldly.

"Actually, I do. Even a servant can tell that you're going through something, and I want to try to help."

"Why?"

"Because it's the right thing to do I guess. Proper though, definitely not," I said, causing a small smile to form on her lips. My heart skipped a beat.

"Don't let Carson hear you saying that. You wouldn't be here tomorrow morning."

I shrugged, now setting myself down in the seat next to her. Looks like I had just broken another one of Mr. Carson's rules of etiquette. 

"Please, tell me," I said looking straight into her eyes. Finally, her expression softened and she began.

"I-it's about Patrick. I uhm...well I..." she struggled with the words, but I understood what she meant.

"You loved him didn't you."

She nodded. More tears threatened to release. "And he l-loved me too."

"It's not that he's gone that makes me feel so. It's the fact that he's the only man who ever loved me or ever will! It's...it's always Mary. Or Sybil, but never me. Even my parents!" Another round of sobs began. 

On it's own, my arm reached around her shoulder and gently brought closer, her head meeting with the fabric of my jacket. Much to my surprise, her arms wrapped around my chest, and she practically clung to me.

"There, there," I said. "Just let it out."

Before I realized what was happening, she fell asleep in my arms, her breathing coming in shallow caesuras of peace. 


	2. Chapter 2

Carson is going to kill me! If he found me in my current "predicament" with Lady Edith, I was screwed. Goodbye job and decent income. Well maybe losing the job wasn't as bad as losing the money. Such were my thoughts while I still held the second eldest Crawley daughter. 

"Lady Edith," I said, praying it would wake her. It did absolutely nothing. Shit!

"Lady Edith!" I said again, louder this time and I shook her slightly.

Still nothing. 

On one hand, I could disentangle myself from her and leave, on the other I could try to carry her to her room. Definitely not the latter, I could just imagine how that would look if I got caught. _Hey this might look bad, but it's not what you think. I..._

In my good sense, I decided not to tempt fate and pried myself from Lady Edith. Silently, I crept out of the library, absolutely fine and relatively composed. The only problem was that I felt a small sense of guilt nagging at the back of my mind. I shouldn't have just left her it said. I should have done the decent thing. 

"Why should I care?" I asked myself. I've said it many times, their problems aren't mine, and they never will be. And for the love of God, I don't even like any of the family. Tolerate yes, feel friendly towards, no. They were all upper class snobs who didn't really care about those below them.

"You're starting to sound like a socialist," my mind told me. I shuddered at that thought. 

Sighing at saying a little prayer, I went back into the library, picked up the sleeping lady, and began the journey towards her room. If I was lucky, she would wake up before we reached the stairs and leave me alone. Luck was almost always against me. 

Dealing with the upstairs rooms' maintenance wasn't exactly my job, that privilege belonged to Thomas and the maids. Unfortunately for me, my lack of knowledge regarding the upper bedrooms was limited at best, and I had no real idea where I was going. But I had a hunch; I guess that counted for something. 

"Please wake up."

"Peter?" a voice said in the dark. Oh crap. "What are you doing?"

It was Anna. Thank God and sweat sonny Jesus!

"Anna, where is Lady Edith's room?" I asked cutting directly to the chase.

She looked at me in confusion.

"I'll explain later."

"This way," she said, directing me in the right direction.

* * *

When we were finished depositing Lady Edith in her room, Anna wasted no time in asking what happened.

"Uh, well, I was doing my usual duties of putting out the fires, when I came across her in the library." I debated whether or not to mention the whole crying scenario. It was best if I just told the truth.

"She was crying, so I just tried to help, and, well, she sort of fell asleep."

"Sort of?"

"It's best you don't know what she fell asleep on," I replied, my cheeks reddening like a rose petal. 

A grin spread on her lips, as she shook her head.

"The rest is self explanatory. Can this just remain between us and not the whole staff?" I said, feeling kind of dumb for even asking. "I don't need O'Brian having any black mail on me."

"Don't worry, Peter, my lips are sealed."

"Thanks."

With that settled, I finished my journey to the servant's hall and went straight to bed. I did not want to do any more talking tonight; I just needed some sleep. Thankfully, William hadn't called it a night yet, and I was left with whole room to myself. Pure quiet. 

The next day was the same as the rest. And the day after that. And the one after that, until finally, I was able to take a day off in the village. On my few "vacation days" as I called them, I spent my time wondering through countryside and village; there was something relaxing about just walking around with nothing but my thoughts to accompany me. 

However, this day was different. Instead of being left alone to enjoy a quiet, workless day, I was accompanied briefly by one Lady Edith Crawley. 

"Peter!" she said, forgetting she shouldn't be happy to see a servant.

"Hello milady." 

"You know I have been trying to find you for the past days to talk to you."

That's not good.

"Why?" 

"Because I wanted to thank you for the other day in the library."

Ah, so that's why. I had noticed that ever since that night, I had caught her more than once looking at me while I served meals. Due to my worry of her being upset that I didn't act like a servant, I tried my best to avoid being alone in any room with her. It had worked perfectly thus far.

"It was no trouble, you needed help, and I just did the right thing." I hoped that would end the conversation. I was well aware of what Carson would do to me if anything developed between us. 

She smiled at me before walking off to do whatever she had come to the village for.

It would be awhile before we would talk again.

**Author's Note:**

> And finished. If this gets a decent amount of attention, I will continue (don't blame me, I have school to deal with). Reviews are much appreciated.


End file.
